2/10/2007

Praying "Our Father"

Over at Jesus Creed, Scot McKnight broaches the subject as to whom, among the Trinity, are we supposed to address our prayers.

Our kids (Trey 8, Joel 6, and Kaira 6) have been praying to “Jesus” for most of their sweet lives. But now I’m trying to de-program them. Last week we had a long talk about how we are given the privilege to pray to the “Father” because of what Jesus has done for us. The “Father” is normally who we should pray to. It’s okay to pray to Jesus or the Holy Spirit, but the wonderful joy and privilege that has been granted to us by “the Way” (Jesus) is that we have access to the Father. Because of Jesus, we can now call God "our Father," he is our loving “Daddy” (Abba) - and we should now feel his loving acceptance as his children,

It occured to me that we teach little kids to pray to “Jesus” because our theology is skewed. We think that kids can relate better to their buddy Jesus more than some fearful Father. We talk so much about how Jesus loves us (especially “the little children”) that we presume that maybe the Father doesn’t love us as much or something. And so we inadvertently teach them to pray to “Jesus” rather than the “Father,” thinking that these kids already have this emotional connection with Jesus that they do not have with the Father (and that maybe they should have that closer connection with Jesus!)